16 Awesome Things You Didn't Know about Charlie Hunnam

Back when Sons of Anarchy was just about to launch into its final season, we interviewed Charlie Hunnam for Men’s Health. Take a guess what he drove to the interview. No, it wasn’t a Tesla. Nor was it a Bentley, a Porsche, or even an Escalade.

When Hunnam pulled up, he was driving a Harley Dyna Super Glide, the same motorcycle he drove on Sons. He was also wearing the same brain-bucket helmet and leather gloves that you’d expect to see on the show, which just ended its 6-year run last week.

The line between Hunnam and his homicidal character, Jax Teller, seemed so dangerously thin that when he stepped off his Harley, we had to fight the urge to flee for our lives.

But as it turns out, Hunnam is one hell of a polite guy. He arrived to the interview right on time, introduced himself with a firm handshake, and said, “Hi, I’m Charlie.” Throughout the day, as fans approached, he bantered with them and took photos, even posing on one guy’s Ducati.

There were a lot of cool nuggets like that—so many, in fact, that we couldn't fit them all into our December cover story, "Get Jacked Like Jax." Here are 16 more surprising Charlie Hunnam facts:

1. He probably won’t read his Men’s Health story.

We won't take it personally. “I don’t think I even have a clear perspective of how I’m depicted in the media,” Hunnam says. “I don’t ever read anything [about myself]. Sometimes fans will say, ‘I heard you’re such a nice guy.’ And I’m like, ‘From where? Where are you getting your information?’”

2. He knows his Los Angeles masturbation landmarks.

When we drive by a park in Beverly Hills, Hunnam points to a brick bathhouse. “That’s the bathroom where George Clinton got caught masturbating,” he says. Fun fact.

3. He has the best New Year’s tradition.

“I tend to go to bed really early on New Year’s Eve,” he says. “Then I wake up early, drive up while it’s still dark, and hike out somewhere beautiful to watch the sunrise. I just take a couple hours and have a post-mortem of the year.”

4. He doesn’t work out with a trainer.

“That’s an hour that I can carve out to just have by myself and just listen to some music and zone out,” he says.

5. But that might be because he’s too stoned for the small talk.

“I can smoke a joint and go straight to the gym.”

6. His big break came while he was drunk in a shoe store.

“I always used to do my shopping on Christmas Eve, and I would get a little Dutch courage in me beforehand, have a couple drinks. I was trying on sneakers for my brother—I was thinking about buying them for him.”

Then he noticed a woman starting at him. “So I blew a kiss at her, and she smiled and thought, ‘Who’s this cheeky little bastard?’”

The woman came over and asked if he’d ever considered acting. Turns out, she was the production manager for a kids show called Byker Grove. “She ended up giving me three episodes.”

7. He’s not interested in doing more comedy.

“That’s a whole different skillset that I neither enjoy nor feel compelled to do more of,” he says. “Because I’ve worked with comedy people, and those motherfuckers are seriously funny. You step in with the Seth Rogens of the world, you better have some jokes.”

8. He’s not totally jazzed about watching 50 Shades of Grey.

“It’s still probably going to be a bit painful for me when the film comes out,” says Hunnam, who was originally going to play Christian Grey in the upcoming adaptation of the hit erotic novel. “It’s always painful when you’ve invested in something and then you don’t end up being a part of it.”

9. He’s super-pals with Kurt Sutter, the creator of Sons of Anarchy.

“He’s kind of my Hollywood dad. And I’m kind of like the son he never had. That’s the depth of our relationship. I feel like it’s reached that significance. We just truly love and respect each other.”

Sutter agrees: “I’d fucking take a bullet for Charlie at this point, and I think he feels the same way.”

10. Back to Hunnam: He’s not stoked about fame.

“The dudes who are big movie stars but also really good actors are more engaged in the acting,” he says. “Like [Ryan] Gosling and even Brad Pitt—those guys have incredibly full personal lives and incredibly full professional lives. I think most of the time fame is just an inconvenience that needs to be negotiated around to get done what you’re actually trying to do.”

11. He doesn’t even care about making the lady fans scream.

“To what end? I have a girlfriend. If you were like 25 and a pussy hound, being famous would be awesome. But it’s not like I’m spending too much time in Vegas or in the Hollywood clubs or anything like that. So it really doesn’t benefit me much.”

12. The documentary End of the Line really screwed him up. It’s about overfishing.

“It’s on Netflix—oh my god. Only check it out if you want to contemplate suicide for 36 hours and then not eat fish for 18 months.”

Which is true—Hunnam didn’t eat fish for 18 months after watching the documentary. But now he does. While we’re having lunch, before he eats his tuna salad, he holds it up to his face. “Sorry tuna!” he says. It’s funny.

13. He carried raw eggs to the set of Sons. The craft service guys cooked them for him.

“They’re like, ‘Why are you bringing your own eggs?’ I’m like, ‘Cause your eggs are from Monsanto. Mine are from a farm down the road.’”

14. He owned at least 85 pairs of Nike Airmax 90s.

“That was poor-boy syndrome of not being able to afford the sneakers that I wanted that all the other kids had a school, and then getting to 25 years old and being like, ‘You know what? I can buy all the fucking sneakers I want.’”

15. But he’s seen the error of his ways.

“Now I’ve soured on the whole thing, and I just feel like a gross, rich, white [guy] with 85 pairs of sneakers unworn. So I went through and picked out the ones that I had serious emotional attachment to, which was only about six or seven pairs. Then I gave a few pairs to buddies, and I’m going to give the rest to charity and be done with this sneaker thing once and for all.”

16. Still—he’ll happily steal clothes.

“I seem to have developed a really big wardrobe recently, but that’s more because I’ve been stealing clothes off of movie sets and off of Sons.”

We warn him that we're going to alert the Men’s Health stylists before his photo shoot tomorrow. He doesn’t seem concerned. “Fuck ’em. I’ll bring a suitcase.”

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